Unseen Academicals

by Terry Pratchett

  ‘Did you know that all of the orcs were hunted down after the war? All of them, children too,’ Nutt said.

  And people don’t say things like that in a romantic situation, thought Glenda. But it still is, she added.

  ‘But they were forced,’ she replied. ‘They had children. Okay?’ Should I tell him about the magic mirror? she wondered. Would it make things better? Or worse?

  ‘They were very bad times,’ said Nutt.

  ‘Well, look at it like this,’ said Glenda. ‘Most of the people who talk about orcs now don’t know what they’re on about, but the only orc they are ever going to see is you. You making beautiful candles. You training the football team. That will mean a lot. You’ll show them that orcs don’t go around pulling people’s heads off. That’ll be something to be proud of.’

  ‘Well, in fairness, I have to say that when I think of the amount of radial force that must have been necessary to effectively unscrew a human head against its owner’s wishes, I am a little impressed. But that’s now, sitting here with you. Then, I wanted to go up to the hills. I think that’s how we must have survived. If you didn’t keep away from humans you died.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a very good point,’ said Glenda, ‘but I think you should keep it to yourself for now.’ She noticed a surprised owl, lit up briefly by the coach’s lamps.

  Then she said, keeping her eyes straight ahead, ‘The thing about the poem . . .’

  ‘How did you know, Miss Glenda?’ said Nutt.

  ‘You talk about kindness a lot.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And under the circumstances, I think Glenda is sufficient.’

  ‘You were kind to me,’ said Nutt. ‘You are kind to everybody.’

  Glenda swiftly put aside a vision of Mr Ottomy and said, ‘No, I’m not, I’m shouting at everyone all the time!’

  ‘Yes, but it’s for their own good.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Glenda said.

  ‘I have no idea. But can I tell you something very interesting about ships?’

  It wasn’t exactly what Glenda had expected, but somehow it was one hundred per cent Nutt. ‘Please tell me the interesting thing about ships,’ she said.

  ‘The interesting thing about ships is that the captains of ships have to be very careful when two ships are close together at sea, particularly in calm conditions. They tend to collide.’

  ‘Because of the wind blowing, and that?’ said Glenda, thinking: In theory this is a romantic-novel situation and I am about to learn about ships. Iradne Comb-Buttworthy never puts a ship in her books. They probably don’t have enough reticules.

  ‘No,’ said Nutt. ‘In fact, to put it simply, each ship shields the other ship from lateral waves on one side, so by small increments outside forces bring them together without their realizing it.’

  ‘Oh! It’s a metaphor?’ said Glenda, relieved. ‘You think we’re being pushed together.’

  ‘It’s something like that,’ said Nutt. They rocked as the coach hit a particularly nasty pothole.

  ‘So, if we don’t do anything we’ll just get closer and closer?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nutt.

  The coach jumped and rattled again, but Glenda felt as if she was travelling over very thin ice. She’d hate to say the wrong thing.

  ‘You know Trev said that I’d died?’ Nutt continued. ‘Well, that was true. Probably. Ladyship said that we were made from goblins for the Evil Emperor. The Igors did it. And they put in something very strange. It’s a part of you that isn’t quite a part of you. They called it the Little Brother. It’s tucked in deep inside and absolutely protected and it’s like having your own hospital with you all the time. I know that I was hit very hard, but the Little Brother kept me alive and simply cured things again. There are ways to kill an orc, but there are not many of them and anyone trying them out on a living orc is not going to have very much time to get it right. Does that worry you at all?’

  ‘No, not really,’ said Glenda. ‘I don’t really understand it. I think it’s more important just to be who you are.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I should be who I am, because I am an orc. But I have some plans in that direction.’

  Glenda cleared her throat again. ‘This thing with the ships . . . Does it happen quite quickly?’

  ‘It starts quite slowly, but it’s quite quick towards the end,’ said Nutt.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Glenda, ‘I mean, I can’t just walk away from my job, and there’s old ladies I go and visit, and you’ll be busy with the football . . .’

  ‘Yes. I think we should be doing the things we should be doing, and it’s the last training day tomorrow, which is actually today now,’ said Nutt.

  ‘And I’ve got to make a lot of pies.’

  ‘It’s going to be a very busy time for both of us,’ said Nutt solemnly.

  ‘Yes. Um, er, do you mind me saying . . . in your lovely poem . . . the line “The crypt’s a handsome place to be, but none I think leave after tea” didn’t quite—’

  ‘Didn’t quite work? I know,’ said Nutt. ‘I feel rather bad about that.’

  ‘Oh, please don’t! It’s a wonderful poem!’ Glenda burst out, and felt the ripples in the calm sea.

  The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things. ‘I think we’re going to be so busy that we’re not going to have much time for . . . ourselves,’ said Glenda.

  ‘I quite agree,’ said Nutt. ‘Leaving things alone would definitely be our wisest move.’

  Glenda felt light as air as the coach trundled down Broad Way, and it wasn’t just from lack of sleep. That stuff about boats, I really hope he doesn’t think it’s all about ships.

  There was a crowd outside the university when they arrived, just as yesterday, but it seemed to have a different complexion now. People were staring at her and Nutt, and there was something wrong with the way they were looking.

  She reached over to the mound that was Trev, pretended not to hear a girlish giggle and said, ‘Trev. Could you, er, have a look at this. I think there’s going to be trouble.’

  Trev, very tousled, stuck his head out and said, ‘Hmm, me too. Let’s all nip in around the back.’

  ‘We could stay on and get off at the Post Office,’ said Glenda.

  ‘No,’ said Trev. ‘We ’aven’t done anythin’ wrong.’

  As they dismounted from the coach a small boy said to Nutt, ‘Are you the orc, mister?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nutt, as he helped Glenda down. ‘I am an orc.’

  ‘Cool! Have you ever twisted someone’s head off?’

  ‘I don’t believe so. I am sure I would have remembered,’ said Nutt.

  This got if not applause then a certain amount of approval from some of the bystanders. It’s his voice, thought Glenda. He sounds posher than a wizard. You can’t imagine a voice like that with its hands around somebody’s head.

  At this point the back gate opened and Ponder Stibbons came hurrying through. ‘We saw you from the Hall,’ he said, grabbing Nutt. ‘Come in quick. Where have you all been?’

  ‘We ’ad to go to Sto Lat,’ said Trev.

  ‘On business,’ said Juliet.

  ‘Personal,’ said Glenda, daring Ponder to object. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘There was something in the paper this morning. We have not been having a very nice time,’ said Ponder, towing them into the relative safety of the undercrofts.

  ‘’ave they been sayin’ somethin’ nasty about Mister Nutt?’ said Trev.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Ponder. ‘The editor of the Times came round, in person, and was knocking on the door to see the Archchancellor at midnight. He wanted to know all about you.’ This was said directly to Nutt.

  ‘I bet it was bloody Ottomy that told them,’ growled Glenda. ‘What have they done?’

  ‘Well, of course, you know there was all
that trouble over the Medusa in the Watch a little while ago,’ Ponder began.

  ‘Yes, but you wizards sorted that out,’ said Trev.

  ‘But no one likes being turned into stone, even if it’s just for half an hour.’ Ponder sighed. ‘The Times has done one of their thoughtful pieces. I suppose it isn’t too bad. It quoted the Archchancellor, who says that Mister Nutt is a hardworking member of the university staff and there have been no incidents of anyone’s leg being torn off.’

  ‘They put it like that?’ said Glenda, wide-eyed.

  ‘Oh, you know the sort of thing if you read the papers a lot,’ said Ponder. ‘I seriously think they think that it’s their job to calm people down by first of all explaining why they should be overexcited and very worried.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know they do that,’ said Glenda. ‘How would people get worried if they weren’t told how to be?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t all that bad,’ said Ponder, ‘but a few of the other papers have picked it up as well and some of the facts have become . . . elastic. The Inquirer said Nutt is training the football team.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Well, actually it’s me. I am merely delegating the task to him. I hope that’s understood? Anyway, they did a cartoon about it.’

  Glenda put a hand over her eyes. She hated cartoons in newspapers. ‘Was it a football team of orcs?’ she said.

  Ponder’s look was almost admiring. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And they did an article about raising important questions about Vetinari’s open-door policy, while saying at the same time that rumours that Mister Nutt had to be chained down were quite likely false.’

  ‘What about the Tanty Bugle ?’ said Glenda. ‘They never write anything unless it’s got blood and horrible murder in it.’ She paused and then added, ‘Or pictures of girls without their vests on.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ponder. ‘They did a rather grainy picture of a young lady with enormous melons.’

  ‘D’you mean—’ Trev began.

  ‘No, they were just enormous melons. The green ones. Slightly warty. She won a contest for growing them, apparently, but in the caption it said that she’s worried that she won’t be able to sleep easily in her bed now that orcs are coming into the city.’

  ‘Is Lord Vetinari doing anything about this?’

  ‘I haven’t heard,’ said Ponder. ‘Oh, and Bu-bubble want to interview Mister Nutt. What they call a lifestyle piece.’ He said the words as if trying to hold them at arm’s length.

  ‘Have people turned up for training?’ said Nutt calmly.

  ‘Oh, yes. The ground is heaving.’

  ‘So we’ll go and train them,’ said Nutt. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t twist anybody’s head off.’

  ‘No, don’t make jokes,’ said Glenda. ‘I think this could be terribly bad.’

  ‘We know something’s going on with the teams,’ said Ponder. ‘And there were lots of fights during the night.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About who’s going to play us.’ Ponder stopped and looked Nutt up and down. ‘Commander Vimes is back in town and would like to lock you up,’ he said. ‘Only in protective custody, of course.’

  ‘You mean put him somewhere where they can all find him?’ said Glenda.

  ‘I would say that the chances of a mob breaking into Pseudopolis Yard are remote,’ said Ponder.

  ‘Yes, but you’re locking him up. That’s what it would be. He’d be locked up and coppers chat like everyone else. The orc would be locked up in prison and if people don’t know why, they’ll make it up, that’s how people are. Can’t you wizards do something?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ponder. ‘We can do practically anything, but we can’t change people’s minds. We can’t magic them sensible. Believe me, if it were possible to do that, we would have done it a long time ago. We can stop people fighting by magic and then what do we do? We have to go on using magic to stop them fighting. We have to go on using magic to stop them being stupid. And where does all that end? So we make certain that it doesn’t begin. That’s why the university is here. That’s what we do. We have to sit around not doing things because of the hundreds of times in the past it’s been proved that once you get beyond the abracadabra, hey presto, changing-the-pigeons-into-ping-pong balls style of magic you start getting more problems than you’ve solved. It was bad enough finding ping-pong balls nesting in the attics.’

  ‘Ping-pong balls nestin’?’ said Trev.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Ponder glumly.

  ‘I remember when one of you gentlemen got hungry in the night and cast a spell for a baked potato,’ said Glenda.

  Ponder shuddered. ‘That was the Bursar,’ he said. ‘He really does get confused about the decimal point.’

  ‘I remember all those wheelbarrows,’ said Glenda, slightly amused at Ponder’s discomfort. ‘Days and days it took to get them all out. I heard we were feeding every beggar in the city and every pig farm out as far as Sto Lat for weeks.’

  Ponder nearly gave a harrumph. ‘Well, yes, there’s an example of why we have to be careful.’

  ‘But there’s still going to be a match tomorrow and I would like to conclude my training programme,’ said Nutt.

  ‘Ah, there’s another problem. You know Lord Vetinari is allowing the Hippo to be used for the game? Well, some of the teams are doing their training there now. You know, a bit of a kick-about, and so on. It’s all about who will be playing Unseen Academicals.’

  ‘But that’s the other side of the city,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Commander Vimes has said the Watch will provide an escort,’ said Ponder. ‘Just for protection, you know?’

  ‘Whose?’ said Glenda. ‘You can see what’s going on here. People will see Mister Nutt as the problem.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all fun and games until someone loses a head,’ said a voice behind Glenda. She recognized that voice and it always sounded as if it was trying to put its hand up her jumper.

  ‘Pepe? What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘And how did you get in?’ Ponder demanded. ‘The Watch are all around this place.’

  Pepe barely gave him a glance. ‘And who are you, smart boy?’

  ‘I run this university!’

  ‘Then I should go away and run it, because you’re not going to be any good around here.’

  ‘Is this – person – known to you, miss?’ Ponder demanded.

  ‘Er, yes. He, er, designs clothes.’

  ‘I am a fashionista,’ said Pepe. ‘I can do things with clothing that you wouldn’t think were possible.’

  ‘I’d believe that, at least,’ said Trev.

  ‘And I know a thing or two about riots and mobs.’

  An idea struck Glenda and she whispered to the irate Ponder, ‘Very big in dwarf circles, sir. Knows a lot of influential people.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Ponder. ‘Actually, I am one,’ he wailed. ‘But I had to do the training myself yesterday and I couldn’t remember all of the things Mister Nutt comes up with so I had them running on the spot, which I don’t think is very helpful.’

  ‘There’s somethin’ goin’ bad,’ said Trev. ‘I know about this city. I’ll go and check a few things out. It’s not as if you really need me.’

  ‘I do,’ said Juliet.

  Trev hesitated, but Nutt had shown him how to do this. He extended a hand and blew her a kiss as he went through the door.

  ‘Did you see that?’ said Juliet. ‘He blew me.’

  Glenda looked at Pepe, whose eyes were turned up so far in his head that she could see the whites – although they were red.

  A short while later, when most of the UU squad headed for the Hippo with Glenda and Juliet trailing after them like camp followers, half a dozen watchmen appeared from the various places that they had selected for a quiet smoke and fell in after them, trying to make it look as if they all just happened to be strolling in the same direction.

  Trev was right, Glenda thought. It is go
ing bad.

  Trev had not gone very far when his street sense told him he was being followed. He jinked in and out of a few alleys and waited at the next corner to confront the follower . . . The follower who wasn’t there. The alley behind him was empty all the way to the last street. He realized this at the same time as someone pressed what definitely felt like a knife to his neck.

  ‘Cor, this takes me back and so it does,’ said a voice. ‘I reckon I can still remember every back alley in this place.’

  ‘I know you, it’s Pepe, isn’t it? You’re a dwarf?’ said Trev, trying not to turn round.

  ‘Sort of a dwarf,’ said Pepe.

  ‘But I don’t have no argument with you, do I?’ said Trev.

  Something small and shiny appeared on the edge of Trev’s vision. ‘Sample piece of moonsilver,’ said Pepe’s voice. ‘I could do more damage with a broken champagne bottle – and I have, believe you me. I wouldn’t threaten a bloke like you with a knife, not with that little girl doting on you like she is. She seems very happy with you and I’d like to keep her happy.’

  ‘Somethin’s goin’ down on the street,’ said Trev.

  ‘What, the whole street? Sounds like fun.’

  ‘Somethin’s gone wrong, ’asn’t it?’ said Trev.

  Only now did Pepe enter his field of view. ‘Not really my problem at all,’ he said. ‘But there’re some kinds of people I just don’t like. I’ve seen too many of ’em, bullies and bastards. If you want to learn athletics very quickly, be born around here with a talent for design and maybe a few other little preferences. Lord Vetinari has got it all wrong. He thought he could take on the football and it’s not working. It’s not like the Thieves’ Guild, see. He had it easy with the Thieves’ Guild. That’s because the Thieves’ Guild is organized. Football ain’t organized. Just because he’s won over the captains don’t mean that everyone’s going to meekly get into line after them. There was fights all over the place last night. Your chums with their shiny new football and their shiny new jerseys are going to get creamed tomorrow. No, worse than creamed – cheesed.’

  ‘I thought you were just someone who made clothes?’ said Trev.